Driving Snow

Whew, it was a st-st-stressful day yesterday, driving in the first real snow accumulation. It wasn't real bad, but being the first makes it harder, nobody is used to it and they do stupid things. I was stopped on the interstate just south of Indianapolis for over an hour and a half while they cleaned up an accident, so it was really bad for somebody. There were a lot of cars off the road in different places and even one pickup truck upside down in the median.

I must have been dyslexic this morning when I googled my destination outside of Cincinnati. It was really simple, right off of 275, but when I got to 275 I went the wrong way. I turned around on US 50 and headed back. I still thought that I was right about the direction I needed to go on OH 128, but I was wrong again. It was harder to get turned around that time, and the snow certainly didn't help, but I made it. Better late than never. With the snow nobody minded.The fork lift driver looked at my truck and said, "Looks like you had a fun trip." "It was a blast," I replied then told him about going the wrong way twice. "Nice," he said.

I had to bang on the winches with my lever bar to knock the accumulated snow and ice off them, then pull on the straps to break the ice that essentially bonded the wound strap together. After loosening all of the straps I went around to the other side of the trailer to unhook them and throw them over the load so that I could wind them back onto the winches. But the straps were frozen to the load and I couldn't get any slack to unhook them. I got the first one loose by forcing my bar behind the strap and then levering it away from the load, but that wasn't working on the any of the others. I had to actually climb onto the load itself, which was covered in ice. That was the problem, the straps were underneath the ice. Crawling, not standing, I carefully made my way down the load and freed the straps, then climbed back down to unhook and throw them. Then I had to wind the straps back onto the winches which was difficult since the straps were stiff. By the time I was done my gloves were completely soaked and my fingers screaming in pain. Oh yea, I remember what it's like to be a flatbed driver in the winter time! Fortunately it had quit snowing and the sun had even come out, which made a big difference.

The return trip was much easier. The snow wasn't falling and the road essentially clear, but it had taken so long to get to my first stop that I had to haul ass to make the pick up for my back haul. It started snowing again before I made it back to the yard. I was beat by the time that I actually did make it, after a twelve hour day. I figured that I deserved a beer when I got home so I stopped and bought my weekly twelve pack. I was carrying it into the house when I got a nice surprize. The porch looked just the same as the walk up to it, snow covered, but actually there was a layer of ice underneath the new snow that had fallen. As soon as I stepped on it I lost my footing and went down. I used the twelve pack to break my fall, which worked wonderfully, it absorbed almost all of the force of my fall. For a moment I irrationally held out the hope that none of the bottles had broken, but I smelled it first, then a brown puddle of beer began to spread from out of the still intact carton. It wasn't too bad though. I came down on a corner of the twelve pack and only two bottles broke, one day's allotment.

Something in the Air

I couldn't put my finger on it, it was intangible. I was in Western Illinois, approaching St. Louis. The freeway climbed into some low wooded hills. If there were differences in the surrounding flora than what one would find back in Indiana I couldn't see them. I was at the same latitude so the quality of light shouldn't have altered, yet there was something, some elusive quality that told me I was closer to the Great Plains. I can't explain it but it was so, and I've felt it before as well. If it were just that I knew I was further west and so concocted the experience then why did it hit me all of a sudden, while my attention was on something completely different?

So autumn is all but over and I all but missed it compared to the last two years. But hey, it's my job. During the peak I was sent to the same place that I'd gone when I detoured through the woods along the stream, but knowing that the detour was there I was bound to take the southern, faster route, a four lane divided highway through an industrial zone along the Ohio River for most of it. I'd have rather gone the scenic route, and nobody told me that I couldn't, but I was bound to complete my task as quickly and efficiently as possible. The rest is just fringe benefit,